Fake It
by poprika
Summary: Mild Sasu/Saku. Sakura looks back, reaches forward, and tries to find a way out of this maze they've gotten themselves lost in.


This was a sort of casual character study of Sakura, because recently I've found myself liking her more and more, thanks to a few well written fics I've read. I wanted to explore a bit, if only to see if I could come up with anything half decent. Hope you enjoy.

**Fake It**

Well, she hadn't always been like this. Honestly, she likes to think that she's grown up, in her own way. Sometimes she remembers little things- something said here, a tear shed there, fighting and crying over this, that and things that don't really mean anything at all now- and finds herself sighing.

When she thinks back, she can't help but be a little embarrassed (and a little amused, in a way that makes her lips twist into something like a smile or a grimace or a sweet combination of the two). "I was such an idiot" she'll tell anyone who asks, "Sasuke-kun (because she still calls him so, even now) was right to leave without me, back then."

Oh, and _there_ was a difference, one that stares her in the face every time she happens to pass a certain bench near the village walls. Back then, she had pleaded with him. Back then, she had cried.

Back then, she had told him she loved him.

Now- had it been her _now_, she wouldn't have wasted her breath on words. Now, she would have taken him down, punched him with all her might so that her hand might reach through his chest and rip out his heart, just to prove that it _was _in there, beating and alive. She would have held it out to him, open and bare in her palm.

Now, she would have offered him his own heart instead of hers.

But second chances are a rare phenomenon and she hasn't come across one yet. She has changed, yes, but still finds herself staring at their backs, so far away and never closer, no matter how fast she runs.

She considers stopping. Wonders: if she threw two kunai straight into their hearts, would they pause for a second and turn around?

More often than not, though, she wonders if she should just get off this path and try another. One empty and overgrown, with moss and weeping willows bleeding onto the road so that she'll always be left wondering if she has strayed off. Far off, too far to consider turning around.

And yet.

And yet.

And yet here she is, still. Watching them get further and further away. She can't find it in herself to feel sad, or lonely, or like she had when she was younger. But she's not empty, like Sasuke; or filled with that pure, relentless determination, like Naruto.

No. Sakura is only one thing:

She's fucking _pissed_.

It wasn't about catching up anymore, or convincing them to wait, to turn around or help her up. It was about _getting_ to wherever they were headed, because this had to lead _somewhere_- didn't it? And who the _hell_ cared if they were a couple steps ahead of her? She'd still get there, if only a few steps behind.

And when she arrived she'd beat them into a fucking _pulp_ for making her walk so far. They'd stare at her like it wasn't their fault and she'd gather the two _idiots_ into her arms, all bruised and bloodied, and never let go now that she had them there.

But more and more now, that future seems more like a wish; like when she sees Sasuke in his darkness, more surrounded by it every time they meet; or when he leaves again and Naruto is left with that _look_ on his face he always gets, as if he is ready to just_ give up _(somehow, he manages to keep going, despite it all. Sakura wonders how he can, wishes he'd share the secret with her so she could stop doubting them both).

Maybe they were lost, having wandered along that same path for too long. 'Lost on the road of life', right? The thought makes her huff a laugh, smiling despite herself. Yes, maybe they _were_ lost. The three of them have fucked up enough along the way to have made a wrong turn _somewhere_.

But she still looks out for the exit, in case they pass it a second time

(where can she find a map so she can get out of this place?)

She's come a long way, (_she thinks as she holds a kunai to Sasuke's throat_) from that scared little girl with a crush. (_The sharp edge presses close against pale skin and_) suddenly she's seeing that road again, with Naruto and Sasuke impossibly far away. And she wonders…

wonders…

if she might just have to kill them both.

**FIN**


End file.
